The ORIGINAL gathering place for a merry band of Three Percenters. (As denounced by Bill Clinton on CNN!)

Wednesday, December 10, 2008

Three Percent: toward a theory and practice of republican restoration

Three Percent: toward a theory and practice of republican restoration

"A third area in counterinsurgency operations worth examining is the stability of the environment. It is almost a tautology that insurgencies thrive on chaos. Terror produced by removing basic securities and livelihoods feeds the population’s desire for alternatives. The uncertainty and fear generated by such conditions inspire the dissatisfieds to join the cause. The insurgency tries to prove its claim as a viable solution by using or creating the instability." -- Measuring Effectiveness in Irregular Warfare, James Clancy and Chuck Crossett, Parameters, Summer 2007, pp. 88-100. http://www.carlisle.army.mil/usawc/Parameters/07summer/clancy.htm

Why are we "bitter clingers"?

During the late, lamentable campaign for the presidency, the President-elect was trying to explain to a latte liberal bunch of donors in San Francisco why he was having such trouble making headway with rural Pennsylvania Democrats.

“You go into these small towns in Pennsylvania and, like a lot of small towns in the Midwest, the jobs have been gone now for 25 years and nothing’s replaced them. And it’s not surprising, then, they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.” -- Barack Hussein Obama, 12 April, 2008, San Francisco, California.

Of course, this immediately promoted the sale of teeshirts proclaiming "I'm a 'bitter clinger'". This sort of insulting, clueless snobbery has always informed the liberal critique of traditional America but the observation, while mistaking causes and effects, hit on something eternal. We do "cling" to our faith and our liberty with great ferocity, mostly because we intuitively understand that it is the old verities that have brought us this far as a free people.

The Gramscian collectivists who have assaulted our culture for the past century through Hollywood and the indoctrination of our youth in government schools understand this. It is to their successes in the culture that they owe the election of the candidate who is the epitome of the collectivist con artist. A people firmly grounded in the principles and history of western civilization, who understood free markets and the glorious concepts of the rule of law and private property, a people who were educated in critical thinking -- HOW to think, rather than WHAT to think -- would never have allowed the slow destruction by corruption that has brought the Founders' Republic to this point.

Yet, here we are. Two peoples, divided by culture, trapped within the same borders. For the moment, our opponents have swept the political field and are poised to collect what they see as the fruits of victory. Among these fruits, we have been told, are more oppressive gun control laws. We Three Percenters, so named because we see ourselves as lineal descendants of the three percent of the colonial population who physically took up arms against King George the Third, have sworn to resist any more such laws. Not one more step back, is our cry. We understand that this may make us outlaws within our own country in short order, bringing us into conflict with the new federal regime. We Three Percenters are truly the "bitter clingers" of whom Obama spoke.

But why are we "bitter clingers"? Leaving aside the issues of faith and principle and focusing merely on defense of the God-given inalienable rights that are codified in the Second Amendment, we do so because we understand (as did the Founders) that it is the Second Amendment that secures all the rest of the Bill of Rights. We do so because it is our firearms that provide stability and order to the society.

We all know this. Heck, even the gun confiscationists know this from experience though they refuse to admit it. What has been the result of the concealed carry movement in the past 30 years? John Lott has said it in the title of his book: "More Guns, Less Crime." Where are the worst outrages against public order, life and limb? Why in the victim disarmament zones of our big cities, of course. Where do the massacres of innocents take place? In the criminal free fire zones that have been carved out of our schools and public spaces. "Gun free school zone" is a lie just as much as a sign that says "Arbeit Macht Frei" over an extermination camp gate, and in the aggregate it is just as deadly. So we cling to our firearms because in the violent uncertain world that has arisen in the ashes of our traditional culture, it is only them, and ourselves, we can count on to protect our families, hearth and home. As the saying goes, "9-1-1: Minutes Away When Seconds Count."

We also understand from observing the statistics of crime that it is unnecessary for everyone to be armed for weapons in the hands of some of the citizenry to bring order and stability for all, even the most hard-headed gun confiscationist who is protected by the uncertainty engendered in the local criminal's mind as to just who has a weapon. Do you see the Brady Bunch putting up signs on their front lawns saying: "Gun Free Household"? Of course not. They're hypocritical beneficiaries of our preparedness.

We are "bitter clingers" because we understand that for a woman with a vengeful ex-boyfriend, or one who accidentally walks into the notice of a rapist, her gun IS order and safety. And we are "bitter clingers" because we understand that our firearms protect us not only from petty criminals, rapists and freelance murderers, but also from tyrannical government criminals and organized murderers of the Stalinist and Hitlerian kind.

Our gun confiscationist opponents sneer at this reasoning, but as I have written in more than one place, if they think tyranny can't come to America, they're whistling past the graveyard of history. The armed black veterans of the Deacons for Defense and Justice, who protected the advocates of Ghandian pacifist resistance to the racist oppression of Klan-dominated local law enforcement with M-1 rifles in their hands and determined looks in their eyes knew this. That is why gun control down here in Alabama is a non-starter for most black folks even today. They remember what it was like to face corrupt government officials who could kill you at a whim.

Here again we see that firearms, and the will to use them, protected order and liberty. Another example would be the Battle of Athens, Tennessee in 1946, when veterans fought a corrupt and violent political machine ignored by the state police with guns in their hands, kept an election from being stolen and won the day. It is not necessary to footnote this with quotes from Ceasare Beccaria, or Tom Paine, or any of the Founders. This is plan common sense understood by anybody with half a brain. Criminals and governments step lightly around citizens who are armed and prepared to defend their lives, their property and their liberty.

In any riot, hurricane, or other man-made or natural disaster, who is the most popular guy in the neighborhood when the looters begin to roam? The man with the evil semi-automatic "assault rifle" of course. "Nobody needs one of those," our enemies sneer. Except, of course, when they do. Will the Crips, the Bloods, MS-13, the Latin Kings, the Aryan Brotherhood, the Klan and every motorcycle gang in the country not have them too? What a silly question. So pardon me, Brady Bunch, if I wish to be armed as capably as the worst maddog criminal I might encounter.

So when we "bitterly cling" to firearms, this is what we cling to: order, safety, liberty.

"Insurrection" or Restoration?

For our declarations of refusal to cooperate in our own further disarmament, our "pragmatist" critics in the gun rights movement have labeled us Three Percenters as "insurrectionists," "insurgents" and "revolutionaries," among other less printable names. Yet we do not want to overthrow the system of government designed by the Founders, but rather to restore it to its former glory. I would draw your attention once more to the quote at the top of this essay.

(I)nsurgencies thrive on chaos. Terror produced by removing basic securities and livelihoods feeds the population’s desire for alternatives. The uncertainty and fear generated by such conditions inspire the dissatisfieds to join the cause. The insurgency tries to prove its claim as a viable solution by using or creating the instability.

Our political enemies of all stripes, including those who claim to be our friends, say that it is we who are "revolutionaries." But, I ask you, which side of this struggle over the culture of this Republic has introduced "chaos," "terror," "uncertainty," and "fear"? Is it not the social engineers of the left who destroyed the black family with their tender mercies of the "War on Poverty" so condemned by own of their own at the time, Democrat Daniel Patrick Moynihan? Is it not the Gramscian culture wreckers of Hollywood and the Gangstas? Is it not, indeed, the gun confiscationists, with their criminal free fire zones in the cities? Further, is it not the social engineers and crony capitalists of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, Democrats all, who set us on this current descent into financial chaos?

It is THEY who are the revolutionaries. THEY who are the insurgents. THEY who are the insurrectionists. By clinging to our firearms and our values, it is WE who provide the basis of order and stability in this society, not them. NEVER them. Ordinary Americans understand this intuitively, even if they are often gullibly taken in by the lies of language the gun confiscationists use: "reasonable regulation," "common sense," "loophole," and "assault weapon."

Gun control has worked so well in the localities under the political domination of the gun controllers that they are happily willing to share their disorder with us. What nice folks. Of course in the end, this is not about "pulic safety," or "crime in the streets," or really even about firearms. The anti-gunners aren't anti-gun, they're anti-guns-in-the-hands-of-individuals. It's not about guns, its about power, which is why it's about guns because as one of the collectivists' fondly-recalled Asian rock stars of the last century famously observed, "political power grows out of the end of a gun."

They know this, and on some level, most every one of us "bitter clingers" knows this. The government, at every level, will always have firearms. Criminals, obviously will always have firearms. At issue here is whether or not the law-abiding citizens of this country will have firearms of military utility able to resist predatory criminals or predatory governments. Yet it is WE who provide the basis for safety and security in this country. This is why we refuse to continue to disarm by a thousand cuts. Because it is in our ability to project credible deterrence to criminals of all stripes, even elected ones, that our safety and the safety, security and liberty of this entire country rests.

We Three Percenters are not trying to "overthrow the government." We are merely insisting that we will not allow the government of the Founders, that sad, battered old girl of a republic, to be finally, irrevocably, overthrown by the collectivists who now have it by the throat. To the extent that we are able to get that idea across to the people (a huge challenge, for it must needs be over the megaphone shouts of the Obamanoids and the ill-named "main stream media"), we may be able to get out of this looming confrontation without anybody getting shot. The "pragmatists," who have much greater resources for getting that message out than do we, could be critical in that. I know they can, but I do not hold out much hope that they will. They are too busy calling us "lunatics" and "insurrectionists," while the real insurrectionists and revolutionaries tear down the old political verities that the pragmatists have counted on for so long.

In the end, faithful to the Founders' legacy, we Three Percenters will still be here, providing even in our resistance to tyranny, the basis of order, liberty and the rule of law against the revolutionaries of the left.

9 comments:

WELL DONE, SIR! Especially the part where you show the political hacks to be the insurrectionists by their complete disregard for the Constitution, while we "bitter clingers" are the ones who wish to restore the Republic!

I would also add that whether by design or consequence, the endgame of nearly all citizen disarmament - as practiced in the English-speaking world at least - is to completely outlaw the concept of individual self-defense.

For example, in the UK now, to physically resist an attack is to invite "assault" charges from the assailant, whose Yooman Roights seem to be paramount in English law.

"For the moment, our opponents have swept the political field and are poised to collect what they see as the fruits of victory."

Bread of deceit﻿ is sweet to a man; but afterwards his mouth shall be filled with gravel. (Proverbs 20:17)

For the king trusteth in the LORD, and through the mercy of the most High he shall not be moved. Thine hand shall find out all thine enemies: thy right hand shall find out those that hate thee. Thou shalt make them as a fiery oven in the time of thine anger: the LORD shall swallow them up in his wrath, and the fire shall devour them. Their fruit shalt thou destroy from the earth, and their seed from among the children of men. (Psalms 21:7-10)

Let them eat the fruits thereof. It's going to be like a very large persimmon before the first frost.

Geez Mike, you could have encapsulated all that with this:

"If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary. In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: you must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place oblige it to control itself." (Federalist 51)

Men are not angels, but utterly wicked unless constrained by some external or internal control, be it fear of dying, or fear of God.

Our enemy believe themselves an elite, smarter, better educated, possessing of higher wisdom than we the rabble. Therefore, the thought of the means of lethal force in our common hands is anathema to them.Even as the First Amendment enshrines and empowers our voice and our faith, the Second does for our heart and our fist.Keep up the good work, Mike.III

As a Jewess in the US, may I remind everyone that criminals are stopped by FIREARMS, not by talk? And that America wasn't won with a registered gun? That is why all REAL Americans put our 2nd Amendment FIRST!

"Progress made under the shadow of the policeman's club is false progress."

I believe that liberty is the only genuinely valuable thing that men have invented, at least in the field of government, in a thousand years. I believe that it is better to be free than to be not free, even when the former is dangerous and the latter safe. I believe that the finest qualities of man can flourish only in free air – that progress made under the shadow of the policeman's club is false progress, and of no permanent value. I believe that any man who takes the liberty of another into his keeping is bound to become a tyrant, and that any man who yields up his liberty, in however slight the measure, is bound to become a slave. -- H.L. Mencken

On the efficacy of passive resistance in the face of the collectivist beast. . .

Had the Japanese got as far as India, Gandhi's theories of "passive resistance" would have floated down the Ganges River with his bayoneted, beheaded carcass. -- Mike Vanderboegh.

In the future . . .

When the histories are written, “National Rifle Association” will be cross-referenced with “Judenrat.” -- Mike Vanderboegh to Sebastian at "Snowflakes in Hell"

"Smash the bloody mirror."

If you find yourself through the looking glass, where the verities of the world you knew and loved no longer apply, there is only one thing to do. Knock the Red Queen on her ass, turn around, and smash the bloody mirror. -- Mike Vanderboegh

From Kurt Hoffman over at Armed and Safe.

"I believe that being despised by the despicable is as good as being admired by the admirable."

From long experience myself, I can only say, "You betcha."

"Only cowards dare cringe."

The fears of man are many. He fears the shadow of death and the closed doors of the future. He is afraid for his friends and for his sons and of the specter of tomorrow. All his life's journey he walks in the lonely corridors of his controlled fears, if he is a man. For only fools will strut, and only cowards dare cringe. -- James Warner Bellah, "Spanish Man's Grave" in Reveille, Curtis Publishing, 1947.

"We fight an enemy that never sleeps."

"As our enemies work bit by bit to deconstruct, we must work bit by bit to REconstruct. Be mindful where we should be. Set goals. We fight an enemy that never sleeps. We must learn to sleep less." -- Mike H. at What McAuliffe Said

"The Fate of Unborn Millions. . ."

"The time is now near at hand which must probably determine, whether Americans are to be, Freemen, or Slaves; whether they are to have any property they can call their own; whether their Houses, and Farms, are to be pillaged and destroyed, and they consigned to a State of Wretchedness from which no human efforts will probably deliver them. The fate of unborn Millions will now depend, under God, on the Courage and Conduct of this army-Our cruel and unrelenting Enemy leaves us no choice but a brave resistance, or the most abject submission; that is all we can expect-We have therefore to resolve to conquer or die." -- George Washington to his troops before the Battle of Long Island.

"We will not go gently . . ."

This is no small thing, to restore a republic after it has fallen into corruption. I have studied history for years and I cannot recall it ever happening. It may be that our task is impossible. Yet, if we do not try then how will we know it can't be done? And if we do not try, it most certainly won't be done. The Founders' Republic, and the larger war for western civilization, will be lost.

But I tell you this: We will not go gently into that bloody collectivist good night. Indeed, we will make with our defiance such a sound as ALL history from that day forward will be forced to note, even if they despise us in the writing of it.

And when we are gone, the scattered, free survivors hiding in the ruins of our once-great republic will sing of our deeds in forbidden songs, tending the flickering flame of individual liberty until it bursts forth again, as it must, generations later. We will live forever, like the Spartans at Thermopylae, in sacred memory.

-- Mike Vanderboegh, The Lessons of Mumbai:Death Cults, the "Socialism of Imbeciles" and Refusing to Submit, 1 December 2008

"A common language of resistance . . ."

"Colonial rebellions throughout the modern world have been acts of shared political imagination. Unless unhappy people develop the capacity to trust other unhappy people, protest remains a local affair easily silenced by traditional authority. Usually, however, a moment arrives when large numbers of men and women realize for the first time that they enjoy the support of strangers, ordinary people much like themselves who happen to live in distant places and whom under normal circumstances they would never meet. It is an intoxicating discovery. A common language of resistance suddenly opens to those who are most vulnerable to painful retribution the possibility of creating a new community. As the conviction of solidarity grows, parochial issues and aspirations merge imperceptibly with a compelling national agenda which only a short time before may have been the dream of only a few. For many Americans colonists this moment occurred late in the spring of 1774." -- T.H. Breen, The Marketplace of Revolution: How Consumer Politics Shaped American Independence, Oxford University Press, 2004, p.1.